Quinoa & Sprouts Salad

This recipe was inspired by Amirsh . I was not able to source all of the ingredients she suggested locally, so I made a couple of substitutions. I am very happy with the result.



1. cook the quinoa (the kind I get comes pre-rinsed and "ready to cook" with the recommended process explained on the package--if you have quinoa that comes without cooking instructions, see DAREBEE's recommendations for cooking quinoa) then allow it to cool
2. thinly slice the carrots and red onion
3. slice the cherry tomatoes in half
4. peel and dice the avocado
5. mix together equal parts avocado oil and apple cider vinegar
6. toss the quinoa, sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, onion, sunflower seeds, and avocado together
7. drizzle vinaigrette over top of the salad

Hot Potato & Rutabaga Salad

Hot as in spicy, that is! This recipe was inspired by DorothyMH who suggested both the potatoes and the rutabaga as salad ingredients. I've never cooked with rutabaga before except to make clapshot for Burns Night suppers. For clapshot, I cook the potatoes and rutabaga separately due to their different cooking times. I stuck with that method here, boiling the rutabaga on its own, then adding it to the rest of the salad once the potatoes were cooked. The spice mixture and method of cooking the potatoes I use here I have done before with good results, but I think the addition of the rutabaga, jalepeños, onion, and cheese really takes this "hot potato" salad up a notch.



1. peel the rutabaga and dice into 1/2 inch cubes
2. boil the rutabaga in a large pot of water until it is soft but not mushy (the cubes should be fairly easily pierced with a fork, but not falling apart)
3. quarter the potatoes
4. remove the stem and seeds from the jalepeños, finely dice the flesh
5. thinly slice the onion
6. peel and mince the ginger
7. cube the cheese
8. once the rutabaga is cooked, strain off the water, and set the rutabaga aside to cool to room temperature
9. heat oil in a large frying pan with a lid
10. add the cumin, turmeric, and ginger to the oil, stir fry for ~ 1 minute
11. add the potatoes and continue to stir fry for another 5 minutes or so
12. add 3/4 cup of water, cover the pan, and cook for 10-15 minutes until potatoes are tender
13. remove the lid, add the coriander and cayenne, and continue to cook for another minute or two, stirring the mixture to blend the new spices in well
14. turn off the heat and allow the potato mixture to cool to room temperature
15. mix rutabaga, potato mixture, onion, jalepeños, and cheese together

sleep_twitch green beans for me as a child usually came as part of a bag of frozen mixed vegetables which my mother would heat with a bit of water. These vegetables always managed to have freezer burn and still tasted dried-out, even after heating them in water. We also sometimes had a bean salad (from KFC, not homemade) that, as I recall, included green beans, kidney beans, and maybe wax beans in a vinaigrette sauce. That I enjoyed--it was certainly preferable to the freezer-burned veggies--but I like your green beans, tuna, and PB combo much better.

Cool, I suppose avocado and alfalfa go together. I don't rally like alfalfa myself but it is the more reasonable choice for salads. The texture of it is weird.
It looks like you have prepared pretty amazing salads throughout this month. I only ever cook quinoa and if I need something special I throw in fruits, like other have mentioned. Now that I think about it, my Mom makes a salad with varied green and purple baby leafs, apple cider vinegar and roasted sliced almonds but I don't have the whole recipe... I'll ask her next time I'm there. The almonds give it a serious flavour kick.

Add some lemon juice and olive oil

Musical gym extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice are in the ingredients list. So they're part of the "all ingredients" that get tossed together in step #6. No need to add them a second time.

Sorry, I didn’t see that. My bad